The US bombing in Syria has made my planned posts on Dennis Kucinich this week even more applicable to current events. Earlier in the week I quoted from a profile of Kucinich in The Washington Post Magazine calling him the future of American politics. As he is currently running for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Ohio, foreign policy was only briefly touched upon in the article, noting that in 2004 he was “the voice for getting out of Iraq.” Now Kucinich is protesting that Donald Trump acted without “congressional authorization in ordering a military attack against Syria tonight. This is a clear violation of the United States Constitution…which makes it clear that only Congress has the power to declare war.”

Kucinich had continued to warn about the direction of US foreign policy in both parties since the days in which he was protesting against the war in Iraq. In October of 2016 he had an article in The Nation entitled, Why Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War? Look at Their Donors. War is first and foremost a profitable racket. It was not difficult to see a turn towards a more hawkish foreign policy when the conventional wisdom was that Hillary Clinton was about to become president, and her opponent was Donald Trump.

In this article from 2016 he cautioned against both the anti-Russia hysteria we are now seeing as well as our current policy regarding Syria. Some excerpts:

According to the front page of this past Friday’s Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of “liberal” hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya along with allied powers working through NATO.

The think tankers fell in line with the Iraq invasion. Not being in the tank, I did my own analysis of the call for war in October of 2002, based on readily accessible information, and easily concluded that there was no justification for war. I distributed it widely in Congress and led 125 Democrats in voting against the Iraq war resolution. There was no money to be made from a conclusion that war was uncalled for, so, against millions protesting in the United States and worldwide, our government launched into an abyss, with a lot of armchair generals waving combat pennants. The marching band and chowder society of DC think tanks learned nothing from the Iraq and Libya experience.

The only winners were arms dealers, oil companies, and jihadists. Immediately after the fall of Libya, the black flag of Al Qaeda was raised over a municipal building in Benghazi, Gadhafi’s murder was soon to follow, with Secretary Clinton quipping with a laugh, “We came, we saw, he died.” President Obama apparently learned from this misadventure, but not the Washington policy establishment, which is spoiling for more war.

The self-identified liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) is now calling for Syria to be bombed, and estimates America’s current military adventures will be tidied up by 2025, a tardy twist on “mission accomplished.” CAP, according to a report in The Nation, has received funding from war contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing, who make the bombers that CAP wants to rain hellfire on Syria.

As the drumbeat for an expanded war gets louder, Allen and Lister jointly signed an op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post, calling for an attack on Syria. The Brookings Institute, in a report to Congress, admitted it received $250,000 from the US Central Command, Centcom, where General Allen shared leadership duties with General David Petraeus. Pentagon money to think tanks that endorse war? This is academic integrity, DC-style…

The American people are fed up with war, but a concerted effort is being made through fearmongering, propaganda, and lies to prepare our country for a dangerous confrontation, with Russia in Syria.

The demonization of Russia is a calculated plan to resurrect a raison d’être for stone-cold warriors trying to escape from the dustbin of history by evoking the specter of Russian world domination…

As this year’s presidential election comes to a conclusion, the Washington ideologues are regurgitating the same bipartisan consensus that has kept America at war since 9/11 and made the world a decidedly more dangerous place…

t is our patriotic duty to expose why the DC foreign-policy establishment and its sponsors have not learned from their failures and instead are repeating them, with the acquiescence of the political class and sleepwalkers with press passes.

It is also time for a new peace movement in America, one that includes progressives and libertarians alike, both in and out of Congress, to organize on campuses, in cities, and towns across America, to serve as an effective counterbalance to the Demuplican war party, its think tanks, and its media cheerleaders. The work begins now, not after the Inauguration. We must not accept war as inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the White House, must face visible opposition.

Kucinich was right about the direction we were heading. Not only have we had this weekend’s attack on Syria. We have also seen increased fear-mongering and demonetization of Russia. Part of this comes from Clinton’s neocon allies who have desired regime change in Russia or see other benefits in fueling conflict. This is exacerbated by Democrats who cannot accept that Donald Trump is president because the Democratic Party rigged the primary process to give the nomination to a candidate as terrible as Donald Trump, and therefore fall for conspiracy theories blaming Russia for her defeat.

I wish that Kucinich was running for a position more related to foreign policy than a Governor. There are far too few anti-war voices left in Congress. One is Tulsi Gabbard, who traveled to Syria with Kucinich last year, and last week did write Donald Trump last week urging against a military strike against Syria.

The Washington Post Magazine took a lengthy look at Dennis Kucinich, who is now running for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Ohio. Here are some excerpts:

“Kucinich was ahead of his time in terms of having that progressive politics before it’s popular, before it’s cool,” says Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, the national progressive advocacy group born out of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. (Our Revolution has endorsed Kucinich in the governor’s race, though Sanders himself has not taken a position.)

…The candidate himself is too humble and shrewd to take credit for the drift of the times. “To me, it’s arrogant to say, ‘Well, everyone has caught up to me,’ ” Kucinich told me recently. “In terms of where I fit in all this, I was holding that space in the party for 16 years [in Congress] relating to what America’s priorities should be. Trade that included workers’ rights, human rights, environmental-quality principles, a universal single-payer not-for-profit health-care system. And stopping these wars.”

It is indeed too much to say that Kucinich begot Sanders or Trump. Sanders himself was advocating for progressive causes for decades before he picked up 1,900 delegates to Hillary Clinton’s 2,800 in the 2016 primaries — far outstripping Kucinich’s total in 2004. Moreover, Kucinich himself has always had limitations as a politician, and in his upcoming race, he may well lose the nomination to Richard Cordray, who is supported by huge swaths of the Democratic establishment.

Win or lose, however, it is undeniable that Kucinich has long been tuned to a political frequency that few heard until it became a roar. He has vied for offices at nearly every level of American democracy and failed spectacularly while running for the presidency in both 2004 and 2008; nobody has been a has-been in quite the way Dennis Kucinich has been. And yet, right now, there may be no better guide to the strange condition of American politics in 2018…

When it’s his turn to speak, Kucinich takes the microphone and walks to the front of the stage like a tent-revival crusader. He’s dressed in skinny jeans, wingtip boots with thick treads, jacket and tie. His default facial expression is delight, and he wears it now as he prepares to sketch a two-minute fable of how Ohio, and America, got here.

“The Democratic Party lost its soul when they made book with corporate America and started taking corporate America’s money, and it blurred the differences between the two parties,” he says in the voice of a larger man, building in volume and pitch. “The American people caught on because the trade agreements that were made under Democratic administrations said they were going to protect jobs, the environment, workers’ rights. None of those things happened. And so all across this state people got used to the idea that the Democrats would say one thing and do another and wouldn’t deliver. And that opened the door for the candidate who won in 2016.” Trump took Ohio by 8 points. “I can be the person who can bring those people who voted for Donald Trump back into the party,” he declares.

The school shooting in Parkland, Fla., occurred 11 days before the forum, and Kucinich seizes on it to separate himself from the other candidates. In coming days, his campaign will circulate a video of Cordray, as state attorney general, speaking at a Second Amendment rally in 2010 after having submitted a brief in support of a Supreme Court case pursued by gun-rights advocates. “Rich, there’s a reason why you got an A from the NRA and why I got an F,” Kucinich says. “I stand for an assault-weapon ban in the state of Ohio, for the possession, the sale. Where do you stand?”

…When I asked him about his gig as a Fox News contributor, which ended when he started running for governor, he said he’ll use any channel to reach people. He pointed to stands he has taken in his gubernatorial campaign on guns, health care, education, energy and the environment that would be anathema to Trump. “I find myself disagreeing with the president on most everything,” he said. But he told me he can’t help sharing Trump’s wariness toward America’s secret agencies. He cited the discredited evidence used to justify the invasion of Iraq as another example of intelligence sources shaping policy in dubious ways. And he described his own strange personal brush with alleged wiretapping: In 2015, reporters for the Washington Times played for Kucinich a recording of a telephone conversation he had in his congressional office four years earlier with Saif Gaddafi, son of Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi. The son was reaching out to Kucinich because he was a leading American voice against the intervention in Libya. The Times reporters did not reveal from whom they got the recordings, which the story said were “recovered from Tripoli.” Kucinich told me the plausible source was a “U.S. or U.S.-related agency,” though he can’t prove it. Later, in early 2017, after Trump charged that Obama had wiretapped him, Fox host Bill O’Reilly invited Kucinich on the air to talk about the Libyan recordings. “If a member of Congress can have his phone tapped on a policy matter, hey, this could happen to anybody,” Kucinich told O’Reilly.

Kucinich’s suspicions about intelligence agencies and worries about tension with Russia are things liberals fretted over a couple of generations ago. Today they are an affront to mainstream Democrats and Trump haters, even as they are shared by right-wing followers of Trump and left-wing skeptics of the liberal and moderate establishments of both parties. In a shaken-up America, Kucinich’s views on foreign policy and related matters mark a new kind of ideological convergence. As Glenn Greenwald suggested to me, “There is a kind of union between neocon centrist Republicans and centrist Democrats against people who are outsiders on the right and outsiders on the left, who are starting to see a lot of things in similar ways as well. And Kucinich is a perfect example of that.”

I wish Kucinich good luck, but wish that instead of running for Governor he was returning to Congress where we need more anti-war voices such as his. This is especially true with many Democrats joining with Republican neoconservatives, promoting confrontation against countries such as Syria and Russia. More on this in a follow-up post on Dennis Kucinich.

Many true believers on the left would love to see Dennis Kucinich become president, while those on the right might want Sarah Palin. For a brief time there was even a fair amount of support for Donald Trump on the right. Nobody really thinks that Dennis Kucinich has a chance of ever being elected president, but he could in a hypothetical contest against Donald Trump or Sarah Palin. Public Policy Polling actually tested this:

If you want to get an idea of how bad Donald Trump’s political standing was by the end of his abortive run for President consider this- a national poll we conducted last week found that he would trail Dennis Kucinich 40-36 in a hypothetical contest.

On that poll we found that there were more Republicans (15%) willing to vote for Kucinich than there were Democrats (14%) willing to vote for Trump. And Kucinich took independents by a 40-38 margin as well…

For all of that Trump is not the weakest Republican in the two hypothetical match ups we tested with Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich’s lead over Sarah Palin if they were to face off would be 43-36. In that scenario Kucinich gets 16% of Republicans to Palin’s 12% of Democrats and leads her by 10 points with independents at 42-32.

Based upon this, as well as other poll results, Trump made the right decision in not running. Palin should do the same.

Oh, and in case I offended anyone, in the case of Kucinich I’m using kook in somewhat of an affectionate manner, although acknowledging how he might be perceived by the middle. In the case of Trump and Palin, they are just kooks, with no further qualification needed.

There was a temporary victory for civil liberties yesterday as the Congressional Democrats, with the help of some Tea Party Republicans, voted down an extension of the Patriot Act. There has always been the rare conservative who has been strong on civil liberties. The Tea Party, while generally representing the current far right Republican base, does have a variety of types of supporters and it is good to see that this does include some who are supportive of civil liberties. Unfortunately they represented only a minority of the Tea Party caucus. Twenty-six Republicans voted against the bill, including eight newly elected Republicans.

Dennis Kucinich helped establish the coalition which opposed the Patriot Act, calling for members of the Tea Party to show support for the Constitution on this matter:

“The 112th Congress began with a historic reading of the U.S. Constitution,” Kucinich said. “Will anyone subscribe to the First and Fourth Amendments tomorrow when the PATRIOT Act is up for a vote? I am hopeful that members of the Tea Party who came to Congress to defend the Constitution will join me in challenging the reauthorization.”

The full text of Dennis Kucinich’s speech against the Patriot Act is under the fold:

I never expected the health care debate to wind up pitting the liberal blogosphere against Dennis Kucinich. The House faces a close vote on adopting the bill passed by the Senate but Kucinich plans to vote against this, protesting that the bill does not go far enough. There is a cost to such ideological purity which extends beyond health care. Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos has pointed out that Kucinich has a very poor track record at actually accomplishing anything.

Markos even threatened a primary challenge (despite the fact that it is too late for anyone to actually challenge him):

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas warned on Tuesday night that if Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) plays a role in killing health care reform, a Democratic primary challenger would almost certainly await him in the next election.

In an appearance on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Moulitsas conveyed pointed frustration with the Ohio Democrat’s pledge to oppose reform on grounds that it doesn’t go far enough. He said Kucinich was practicing a “very Ralph Nader-esque approach” to politics.

“The fact is this is a good first step and he is elected not to run for president, which he seems to do every four years,” he said. “[Kucinich] is not elected to grandstand and to give us this ideal utopian society. He is elected to represent the people of his district and he is not representing the uninsured constituents in his district by pretending to take the high ground here.”

As I predicted back in November, Dennis Kucinich has finally figured out what a big mistake he made in 2004. With the second choice being important in the Iowa Democratic caucus, Kucinich threw his support to Edwards, helping him come in second place. Some such as Chris Bowers are puzzled, writing “backing away from Edwards after Edwards moved even further to the rhetorical and policy left seems odd to me.” Maybe Bowers is right that Kucinich is “an odd fellow” but he’s not a total fool. As I noted at the time, in November Kucinich figured out what a phony John Edwards is and, unlike many Democrats, is not fooled by the populist pose that Edwards has taken in order to do well in Iowa.

Democratic Presidential candidate and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich opened the New Year by publicly asking his Iowa supporters to vote for him in the caucuses this Thursday, and suggesting that if he did not make the 15% threshold, their second ballot should be for Senator Barack Obama. “This is obviously an ‘Iowa-only’ recommendation, as Sen. Obama and I are competing in the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday where I want to be the first choice of New Hampshire voters.

“I hope Iowans will caucus for me as their first choice this Thursday, because of my singular positions on the war, on health care, and trade. This is an opportunity for people to stand up for themselves. But in those caucus locations where my support doesn’t reach the necessary threshold, I strongly encourage all of my supporters to make Barack Obama their second choice. Sen. Obama and I have one thing in common: Change.”

Those who are surprised to see such signs of sanity from someone on the far left of the Democratic Party will be not be surprised to hear that Ralph Nader remains as delusional as ever. Ralph Nader, who helped Bush get elected by claiming that there was no difference between George Bush and Al Gore, has endorsed John Edwards, supporting his “pugilistic brand of populism.” Yet one more reason to vote against John Edwards.

The volatility of the Iowa caucus race can be seen in how little the polls agree with each other. While I noted yesterday that John Edwards had taken the lead in the Insider Advantage poll, today we have a new poll from the Washington Post-ABC News showing Edwards back in third place. As we saw in 2004, polls are poorly predictive of the outcome of the Iowa caucus and at this point it is possible that Obama, Clinton, or Edwards could wind up winning.

There are many problems in using polls to predict the Iowa caucus. There are many undecided voters, and even many of those who chose a candidate admit that they are likely to change their minds. Another factor is that it is difficult to predict who will turn out to participate in the Iowa caucus, which is far more difficult than just quickly showing up to vote. Edwards might have the edge here because more of his supporters have attended the caucus in the past, but other polls suggest a greater intensity and determination to attend among Obama’s supporters.

Until he fell behind in most polls it was assumed that Edwards would win in Iowa, and he very well still might do much better than is currently indicated in the polls. Edwards has many advantages having campaigned there in the previous election and having started so much earlier in this campaign cycle. He particularly benefits from having spent more time in rural areas as a candidate can pick up more delegates by winning more sparsely attended rural caucuses than even if his opponent wins by larger margins in the cities.

Being the second choice of many voters can move someone into the lead as supporters of candidates with the support of less than 15% attending must choose a different candidate. Some polls have showed that Edwards is the second choice of more supporters of the second tier candidates, but Obama has been eating into this lead. In 2004 Dennis Kucinich threw Edwards his support, helping him move into second, but Kucinich finally realized this year that Edwards is not worthy of such backing.

Independents tend to be more likely to support Obama, but they are less likely to vote in the caucus. This independent support might still help Obama as Iowa voters look towards the general election, especially as Edwards only does respectable in national polls because many voters in other states still see him as a moderate. People in Iowa, as well as The Des Moines Register which decided against repeating their endorsement, are more likely to realize that Edwards is quite different, and too divisive, this year.

Obama receives more support from students, but turn out by students is poor in the best of conditions. I wonder if it will be even worse this year due to the caucus falling while some students might not even be back after the holiday break. This might potentially have an impact on Ron Paul as well in the GOP race.

The 2004 caucus was notable for John Kerry moving from forth to first in the final days. While I would not totally exclude the possibility of a second tier candidate moving up, this looks far less likely this year. By early in 2004 there were stories about Kerry’s impressive ground game and some pundits were predicting he might sneak into second place. I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time talking with Teresa Heinz Kerry after a campaign stop in Michigan about a week before the Iowa caucus and she seemed quite optimistic about not only beating expectations but actually winning. I wonder if this was the expected optimism of a candidate’s spouse or if she had inside information which accurately predicted the outcome. Regardless, so far I don’t see anyone in the second tier showing signs of repeating Kerry’s surge, as much as I would like to see this happen.

With all the attention being placed on the Iowa caucus it is far from certain as to how much it will matter. If Obama or Clinton win big in Iowa they will be difficult to beat, but it is questionable if Edwards could use a win in Iowa as Kerry did to take the nomination. Kerry was already moving up in the New Hampshire polls even before the Iowa caucus, and Kerry’s views are far more in line with those of New Hampshire voters than Edwards’. As Edwards has devoted so much more time to Iowa anything less than a decisive victory would not be seen as very impressive. The Edwards campaign is also hampered by a poor organization beyond Iowa, in addition to a weak candidate, and even a bounce out of Iowa might not be enough to save his campaign.

Kucinich Will Introduce Privileged Resolution To Force Up Or Down Vote On Cheney Impeachment

Washington, Nov 2 –Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) announced today that he will be offering a privileged resolution on the House floor next week that will bring articles of impeachment against the Vice President, Richard B. Cheney.

“The momentum is building for impeachment,” Kucinich said. “Millions of citizens across the nation are demanding Congress rein in the Vice President’s abuse of power.

“Despite this groundswell of opposition to the unconstitutional conduct of office, Vice President Cheney continues to violate the U.S. Constitution by insisting the power of the executive branch is supreme.

“Congress must hold the Vice President accountable. The American people need to let Members of Congress know how they feel about this. The Vice President continues to use his office to advocate for a continued occupation of Iraq and prod our nation into a belligerent stance against Iran. If the Vice President is successful, his actions will ensure decades of disastrous consequences.”

The privileged resolution has priority status for consideration on the House floor. Once introduced, the resolution has to be brought to the floor within two legislative days, although the House could act on it immediately. Kucinich is expected to bring it to the House floor on Tuesday, November 6.

The Daily Mail has an article on problems in the British health care system–a system I’ve also been critical of. It came as no surprise to review the conservative blogs and see them attempt to use this as evidence against Democratic health care plans. Some call this evidence against a single payer plan, but a single payer plan and a government run plan are two separate things. A government run plan is one form of a single payer plan, but is quite different from the plans advocated by most proponents of single payer plans in this country who advocate plans such as extending Medicare where health care is still provided by private doctors and hospitals.

Of the Democratic candidates running this year, only Dennis Kucinich has been pushing a single payer plan, and this plan is nothing like the British government-run plan. Assuming Kucinich has no chance at winning, a single payer plan isn’t even on the table. Right Wing News tries to confuse the British system with Hillary Clinton’s plans. While I’ve had disagreements with Clinton over health care, her plan is neither government-run or even a single payer plan.

While comparison of the British plan to the plans advocated by Democratic candidates is erroneous, it is valid to use this as arguments against the views of Michael Moore. I previously noted that a failing of Sicko was that, while it was of value in demonstrating health care problems in this country, it white washed the problems in other countries. It is worth noting that Moore, who advocate a government run plan, has opposed the plans of all the Democratic candidates, believing that Kucinich comes the closest but does not go far enough.

Conservatives regularly try to scare people from considering any reforms to the health care system by screaming “socialized medicine.” When they draw false comparisons between the British system and the plans advocated by Democratic candidates, I wonder if they are knowingly resorting to scare tactics or if they really have this little understanding of different forms of health care delivery. Either way, the views of those who regularly confuse these systems are hardly worth considering.

With so many debates so far before the election, it is questionable as to how much any of them really matter. If last night’s AFL-CIO debate impacts the race the two effects may be to further harden this as a Clinton vs. Obama battle and to increase the emphasis on health care.

To the extent that the race is perceived as a two-way Clinton vs. Obama battle, John Edwards further slips from the top tier. Last night’s debate was particularly important for Edwards as he has been hoping for the endorsement of the AFL-CIO, but the labor organization has been holding off, fearing Edwards cannot win. Edwards needed to change that perception but was unable to do so. Should members vote with their hearts rather and ignore the question of who can win, Dennis Kucinich out-performed Edwards. Edwards was further hurt by questions of hypocrisy when he questioned the sources of money for other candidates while he obtains a disproportionate share of his contributions from trial lawyers, along with his connections to hedge funds and money received from News Corp.

A fierce two way battle between Obama and Clinton might act to shut out the other candidates, but does leave them with some hope. In 2004 a battle between Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt wound up turning off the voters, giving John Kerry and John Edwards the top two spots in Iowa and ultimately on the general election ticket.

Besides Kucinich, Biden came across the strongest in the battle to follow Obama and Clinton. Dodd and Richardson also had good moments, but Richardson’s pro-business stance helps him far more with independents than among last night’s crowd. The large number of independents expected to vote in Iowa and New Hampshire could give a boost to both Obama and Richardson, while seriously hurting Edwards’ chances.

Debates often come down to one memorable moment, such as the question over negotiations in the You Tube debate. The most memorable moment of the debate last night was a question on health care:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWNkqjTT_Wg]

QUESTION: After 34 years with LTV Steel I was forced to retire because of a disability. Two years later, LTV filed bankruptcy. I lost a third of my pension and my family lost their health care.

Every day of my life I sit at the kitchen table across from the woman who devoted 36 years of her life to my family and I can’t afford to pay for her health care. What’s wrong with America and what will you do to change it?

Chris Matthews commented, ““I wonder if that wasn’t a moment that’s gonna change American political history.” Opponents of health care reform sometimes try to place the blame on those who lack adequate coverage, but this provides a perfect example of hard working people who lose coverage due to no fault of their own. The differences between the Democrats on health care are not great enough to affect the nomination, but the lack of any meaningful ideas could seriously hurt the Republicans in the general election.